Ebusiness Despatches: René Carayol on the future stars of the e-world

"We're experiencing an acute shortage of talent."

How often over the years have we heard this lament, in mainstream IT or indeed in any growth area? Now we're beginning to hear the same thing about the E-world. Let's just think about the magic ingredient everyone is looking for - experience.

No one would deny that experience - 'been there, done that' - is a crucial ingredient in many situations. But we also need to remind ourselves that, at the outset of any truly novel venture, the sum total of accumulated relevant experience is by definition exactly nil, zero, zip, nada. Or the sum total of the above.

It wouldn't have been much good for Christopher Columbus to look for people who'd been to the New World before, or even for people who had much idea how to get there. What Columbus needed was people who - to be blunt - were up for it, whatever 'it' turned out to be. For Columbus and the New World, read also JFK and the moon, Augustus and the Roman Empire and so on through the ages. I don't recall any of them ever abandoned a mission on account of 'a shortage of talent'.

Gradually, managers and head-hunters are beginning to understand what great innovators have always understood. Attitudes and attributes - particularly courage and the ability to learn fast - are often more important than semi-relevant experience. Hiring people on the basis of what they're capable of, rather than what they've done, may result in embarrassing misfits. But at least it gives you the chance of a major success.

People entering the e-world now come with little or no cultural baggage. Their working methods are based not on process but on delivery. They hire traditional skills where they need them. It's no coincidence that with the arrival of these people, development time scales in traditional IT have also been collapsing. This is the skunk works. All that matters is the outcome.

Most companies boast that they have room for mavericks, for scary people who dare to think and act outside the box. What they usually mean is that they employ a few tame eccentrics, ageing radicals, who can be relied upon to challenge sacred cows without actually leading them anywhere near the abattoir. The ultimate complacency is to assure yourself that while such people exist, you are not being complacent. Low turnover used to be a signal of a stable culture and wise management. Now it's increasingly a danger signal of intellectual and moral stagnation.

It's now timely to look for talent in places that have previously been ignored or derided. Through the eyes of traditional managers many potential winners look like losers, or at least semi-detached performers. For decades we've been accustomed to looking at a potential joiner's CV and saying: "Oh no. Six jobs in the last six years. This guy's a butterfly."

Now we have to consider the possibility that this candidate is engaged in a relentless hunt for a creative work environment and will not settle for less. And that might be a priceless asset in any organisation. The old management/employee deal - you work for me and I'll manage your career - is of no interest to the new arrivals. They see it as a busted flush. They own their own careers and will act accordingly.

So you have to think carefully about the kind of people you hire and, just as vital, the management context in which you place them. It's completely futile to hire creative and positive people and surround them with an impenetrable membrane of corporate culture. Accept that if you hire scary people and want them to perform, you have to give them a measure of autonomy that will wake you up screaming in the night, and guarantee a steady stream of corporate complainants knocking at your door. "How come they get away with that? We never have."

Take a lesson from sport. Any manager can cope with players like Mike Atherton or Alan Shearer, who train hard, live clean and always give their best. The real test of a sports manager is how he copes with larger than life characters like an Ian Botham, an Eric Cantona or even a Paul Gascoigne or a Maradona. For decades we have been hiring people on the basis of experience, and firing them on the basis of personality. It's time to hire for attributes and gifts. Glenn Hoddle's technical expertise was probably unequalled in his time. Pity about his communication skills.